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by nonameiguess
897 days ago
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These categories are nowhere as cut and dry as HN seems to often think. Netflix is an even better example than Amazon. Infrastructure and delivery is certainly somewhat of a competitive advantage, but their product is not software at all. They're a media company, a production studio, a distributor. People like Shonda Rhimes are the true superstars and they get $500 million contracts that reflect that. It doesn't mean you can't have an extremely rewarding, well-compensated career as an engineer there, but you're still not Chris Hemsworth. You're not what their users really care about. Without content, there is nothing to sell, no matter how strong the software is. Then you have something like a Raytheon. They're a far purer "technology" company than any FAANG other than Apple. Hardware and software is literally all they sell. No ads, no media, no communities. But very few of the products made there are owned by the company. They're made on behalf of third-party buyers, usually the US military, which puts you in category 3 according to this kind of breakdown, but that is extremely misleading. You're not a cost center. The pay tends to be lower compared to silicon valley standards because of government acquisition laws and the huge number of hiring constraints that have nothing to do with technical excellence, but you're still the primary value creator and the military program you're working for will treat you that way. This one is arguably even weirder because the actual "product" of the military is war and the superstars are the soldiers, pilots, line officers. Technology developers are always in a support role, but that isn't any different from working for Apple or Microsoft. Whoever is actually using those products isn't deriving value simply from using a computer. They're doing real world work with it and that work is what they really care about. Technology is always an enabler. Nonetheless, technology developers for the military make a lot more money and have far easier jobs than even a four-star general, so which role do you really want? |
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it is hard to say almost 99% product is not engineering but what it enables company to do. In a sense this division is psychological: either company cares about engineering and makes it a priority or it doesn't.
I think good proxy would be tooling which company uses, niche languages like Clojure/Erlang, open source activity, well known people in decision making positions rather than specific business type.